The Knox County Parks & Rec are an organization that fully support Geocaching on their property.
The GSC invite you to join in for a day of giving back to this parks department, by attending the Third Annual GSC CITO Event, at Ouabache Trails State Park as we volunteer to do some trail cleanup, and perhaps some maintenance.
We plan to begin as usual with a light lunch cooked on a grill- dogs and/ or sausages, plus anything attendees wish to pitch in, such as chips, or drinks etc. Bottled water will be provided on a first-come first-serve basis in limited supply.
We will meet at the posted coords, which will lead you to the Sacagawea Shelter, near the Sacagawea Trail. The Park Office was very delighted to accomodate our group's reservation of the shelter for this annual trail cleanup event.
After lunch, we will begin to work on cleaning up the area of any and all trash in sight. Park staff also mentioned a few other things that could use some attention if we choose to help, such as larger fallen limbs or debris from winter or storms to bring in from the trail, anything that may be blocking the trail, and even redefining any parts of the trail that may appear to be overgrown if we choose to do so.
Besides trash, another item that park staff HIGHLY recommended we give attention is "Winter Creeper," so getting this pulled up should also be a priority. Winter Creeper is a vine that tends to grow literally just about everywhere in the park. Left alone, it will rapidly cover trails, and climb up the trees, choking them and preventing proper growth. The Parks Department describes it as quite a fast growing nuisance.
Please feel free to bring along any tools that could be useful in beautifying the park in a respectful manner, such as gloves, extra trash bags, etc. We were authorized to bring in chainsaws, shovels, hatchets, hedge trimmers, snips, ropes, wagons and such to pull out vines & trash, and cut up larger limbs and such as we see fit, in order to move them out easier.
Pease use common sense, good judgement and respect.
See you at the CITO!!!